Sometimes, the idea of a painter’s work draws me in more powerfully than the appearance of it. Even though I might like the intent, I feel bored or put off when viewing it. In other cases, the art-work immediately captivates me, but when I read the artist’s or gallery’s descriptions, I think, “Really?” The explanations seem ponderously intellectual or so obscure that I can’t relate them to what I’m seeing.

For me, the Wangechi Mutu show at the Nasher Museum is a refreshing change of pace. Visually, Mutu’s paintings are glorious and provocative, and through them she explores a variety of social and political themes. Although the concepts are not brand-new, her paintings and short films deliver the ideas with such vibrancy and power. (Now, at this point, I will confess that I don’t have an art history background. I simply have a passion for the visual dialectic. I'm drawn to what's beautiful, but mostly, I gravitate towards what surprises me, what sparks my thoughts and feelings. I want the visceral experience as well as the chance to question my assumptions.)

Many, if not most, of Mutu’s works feature women, and they are fabulous— extraordinary and fable-like. Using a combination of painted forms and magazine cutouts, she’s created figures that sprout motorcycles and machine parts from sinuous limbs, evoking images of women who are at once creepy, sexy, and powerful. In this illusionary world, they act out a rebellion against both European domination and male appetites. Despite the serious subject matter, Mutu has a clever sense of humor, offering multiple interpretations of “A Little Thought for All Y’all Who’re Thinking of Beating Around the Bush.” In this one, a woman rides a snake she’s beheaded, and there’s a sense of triumph and glee.

In another painting/collage piece, “Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies,” Mutu depicts a human triangle. At the top, a small creature (somehow malevolent, animal, and male) appears to be driving this human pyramid. The figure it rides is clearly female and Gumby-like in her accommodating physical stance. At the bottom: another female. Very full-figured, she carries the others and clearly has the strength to do it. Although the most put-upon, she has the fortitude to endure.

For me, the most disturbing piece in the exhibition was “Eat Cake”—a short video installation. Although I’m not typically drawn to this art form, I found it mesmerizing even while I felt disgusted. In the 12-minute black-and-white, we see Mutu dressed for a party but sitting in the woods in a high backed wooden chair. Apparently, this is a private fête, and she regally sips from a cup as she surveys her surroundings. Oddly, she sprinkles some of the liquid on the ground, apparently indifferent to the waste and the drink itself. Soon after, she unveils a three-tiered chocolate cake and proceeds to devour it with her hands. Using her fingers and one-inch long white nails, she grabs hunks of chocolate cake and shoves them in her mouth in a manner both proprietary and carnal. She seems unconcerned as she capriciously spits out some bites, tossing them to the side. She simply takes another chunk of chocolate to her mouth, chews, and swallows. Eventually, she consumes the entire cake, but along the way, she takes breaks, absentmindedly reshaping the mass into a dome with her hands. It’s like a child who plays with mud or wet sand. Clearly, this woman thinks of food as a possession more than a source of nourishment. She trusts that there will always be more and feels no reason to conserve it. I left the video with a heightened sense of our gluttonous, wasteful Western world.

There’s plenty more to see in this show, and I’ll leave others to seek it out. For me, the exhibition more than lived up to my hopes. It revitalized my enthusiasm for contemporary art as well my appreciation of the Nasher.

I happened upon Hyperallergic’s
review of Stefan Sagmeister’s art exhibition: “The Happy Show” at the Pacific
Design Center in Los Angeles. It’s a rich
piece on the nature of art (as opposed to design) and Sagmeister’s vision of
happiness:

Although the writer, Dahlia Schweitzer, initially focuses on
the artist’s theme and style, she eventually explores the question at the
center of the exhibition: “What does it
take to be happy?”

In conversation with the show, she writes:

“Happiness … comes from an acceptance and appreciation of
things exactly as they are right now — even if/when we wish things were
different. The decision to be happy must be followed with not only an awareness
of what things make one happy, but also the patience and persistence to then
follow through. The decision to be happy must, perhaps most radically of all,
be acknowledged as a decision. As a choice. Not as a random state of internal
Zen, or as a guarantee afforded with the right purchase.”

I agree that happiness involves a delicate balance of
acceptance and change; yet, to primarily achieve this by lowering expectations
seems a sad path to contentment. What
about adding more positive experiences to your life?

That’s what the psychologist, Barbara Frederickson, argues
in her book, Positivity. Her ideas leapfrog the simplistic: “Don’t
worry; be happy,” and rather than advising individuals to deny their negative
experiences, she recommends that they instead focus on fostering the natural
goodness in their lives.

Based on extensive research, Dr. Frederickson has found that
there are ten different types of positive emotions that promote individual resiliency
and happiness. The key is establishing a
ratio of at least three positives for every one negative. The more stress a person experiences, the
more important it is to seek out experiences which promote transformative
emotions. So what are we talking about
exactly? These are the ten feelings we
want: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration,
awe, and love. Most are obvious. If you enjoy dancing, then dance more frequently
when you’re unhappy. That will give you
joy.

If your job has reached a frenetic pace, take time to drink
tea or meditate (serenity). Then download
your favorite comedic film (amusement), and sign up for a class on a topic
that’s always intrigued you (interest). However simple this recipe seems, it
isn’t. It requires self-awareness and
the willingness to sometimes push yourself.
Still, you can rearrange your life to naturally include these
experiences so that they buffer you against the negative life events that are
sure to happen at some point. In the end, you may still need to revise your
definition of the “complete life,” but so too, you can revisit what it takes to
make you happy. Maybe it’s as simple as
sitting in a garden watching butterflies or helping a friend complete a house
project. No doubt, these are easier to
attain than any other fantasy you have of happiness.

(For more information about Barbara Frederickson and Positivity, click on this link: http://www.positivityratio.com/)

Here’s an interesting idea: Slow Art Day. This weekend (Saturday April 27, 11am-2pm), various
museums and galleries all over the country (and world) will sponsor a moment of
art appreciation and conversation.
Basically, if you register at a local gallery or museum (see the list of
participants here: http://www.slowartday.com/2013-venues/#letter_5175bfce2bf77_N),
you’ll gather with other viewers to spend ten minutes looking at five pieces of
artwork. Then, over lunch, you’ll have a chance to discuss your experience. What
did you notice about each piece? How did
your reaction change as you leisurely considered and walked around it? Did you examine it for meaning or simply
enjoy the colors, shapes, and texture?

Too easily in the US, our hectic, overactive lives lead us to
focus on efficiency and speed. That
mindset can be difficult to overcome when in an art museum, and Slow Art Day is
a way to encourage a “mindful” approach to each painting and sculpture. Ultimately, it encourages gallery-goers to steep
themselves in the effects of the artwork, to luxuriate in the colors, shapes,
and textures.

“Mindfulness” has become a recognizable concept, one that’s been
translated into a way of combatting stress and even problems with overeating. It can be a way of life as well, facilitating
an attunement that enriches and expands your experience of the world around
you.

If you join the fun on Saturday, you will only see a few individual
pieces of art, but you’re likely to notice aspects of each you wouldn’t on
another day, in another way. If you happen
to live in the Triangle region of North Carolina, the Ackland Art Museum at
UNC-Chapel Hill is participating. Sign
up here:

Apparently, it’s a discussion that will never die. As a psychologist and writer, I frequently
hear it: “You have to be at least a
little crazy to be a good artist.” And
out on Saturday night with friends, the debate began again. A music lover asserted that creativity derives
from an emotional “imbalance” or mental “unhealth.” … Sure,
we can all think of famous artists who abused alcohol (Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, and Jackson Pollack) and of ones who suffered from a major mood
disorder (Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and Van Gogh). Does that mean, though, that everyone who
struggles for emotional stability becomes a great artist? (You wouldn’t assume that if you’d ever
worked in a psychiatric hospital.) Does
it then mean that if you’re normal and love writing, you should hang it up and
opt for banking? Or basic
journalism? Not in my opinion. I can think of many celebrated artists who
have no history of mental illness.

Personally, I believe that artistic greatness stems from
a devotion to craft and an ability to convey universal emotions or themes while
delivering them in a unique, fresh style.
Think of Monet, whose impressionistic paintings embodied a different
kind of realism. Picasso too. Think of
Frank Gehry’s architecture: designs that play with boundaries to deliver
buildings recognizable and compelling? What
about the Latin American writers who veined emotions through magical realism?
Ray Bradbury and Frank Herbert? They shifted
our perspective on true human experiences by creating alternative worlds.

Literature is what I know best, and my most ready
examples hail from there. Still, I don’t
think that other art forms are any more inherently correlated with psychological
dysfunction. No doubt, emotional
upheaval can spawn the intensity necessary for a dramatic piece, but it is
never enough.

Ironically, research suggests that there might be a
different connection between creativity and health. As it turns out, almost everyone has the urge
to create, and individuals tend to be happier when they have time to innovate
or express themselves in novel ways.
That doesn’t have to mean painting on canvas or choreographing a dance
routine. Instead, it might be gardening or
cooking or improvising to fix a pesky problem in the tool shed. If viewed from a 180-perspective, maybe
writing poetry or painting is what helped Vincent Van Gogh and Anne Sexton live
as long as they did.

We can all find personal satisfaction in actively using
our skills and resources to produce something new, and there can be an invigorating
sense of self-discovery along with it. Whether
our experiments become valued art is irrelevant. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve
met someone who on learning that I write poetry, immediately said, “I wrote a
poem once.” Typically, it’s someone who
doesn’t read poetry or even literature very often, but that smile is memorable. The process of writing that poem made the
person feel happy and proud. All kinds
of art matter, and you don’t have to have problems to create it. Let’s separate what art does for us personally
from the interpretation of its greatness and then again from our assumptions
about the person who makes it.

Freud originally conceived sublimation as a defense
mechanism, a healthy redirection of “unacceptable impulses.” Maybe you’re thirteen and have only one
parent. Despite how important your father is, you feel incredibly angry at him for
the various ways in which you think he neglects your needs. If you acted on this rage, you might jeopardize
the relationship. So your “psychic”
compromise is to vent those feelings elsewhere. Perhaps you choose boxing as your
after-school sport. In this way, you may
never fully recognize or even acknowledge the anger you feel towards your dad, but
you’re able to release some of it by boxing in the ring.

I think of sublimation in the broader sense. When something horrible happens, as in the
death of a close friend, how do you transform that pain into something bearable
and perhaps productive? If depression
and suicide is as hereditary as hair color in your family, how do you
cope?

I saw two films at the wonderful Full Frame festival this
weekend in Durham: “Which Way to the
Frontline From Here?” in which Sebastian Junger pays tribute to a close friend
who died while photographing the violence in Libya … and then “Running From
Crazy”—Mariel Hemingway’s exploration of the inherited depression and suicidal
tendencies that run rampant in her family.

In their on-screen appearances, both Junger and Hemingway
seem tortured with grief and in Hemingway’s case: anxiety, as well. (She clearly worries about whether the family
predisposition to substance abuse and suicidal depression will afflict her
daughters.) Yet, both have chosen to construct
something positive from this. Although
very different in delivery, these documentaries honor and explore their
experiences while at the same time stretching beyond them, feeling their way
towards the prevention of similar tragedies.

Junger focuses his film’s attention on Tim Heatherington,
a friend and former collaborator. At the
end of the movie, we discover that Heatherington bled to death after having
been hit with shrapnel from a mortar. Sadly,
had those around him been trained in first aid, he might have survived. Heartbroken after learning that information, Junger
took a proactive approach to the problem.
He opened a training school to teach freelance journalists how to manage
critical health situations in the field.
Now, he can follow every film screening with a Q&A in order to
highlight the importance of the problem and a potential solution.

For her part, Mariel Hemingway has acted as a
spokesperson for various mental health treatment facilities and prevention organizations. In the
documentary, we see her give speeches at McLean Hospital in Boston and then at
a Suicide Prevention event. The problem
of ameliorating mental illness and the dysfunction that frequently travels down
generations has a less clear solution than injured freelance journalists;
however, Hemingway is able to use her family’s cultural prominence to help
combat the stigmatization that frequently derails conversations about mental illness
and treatment. With admirable honesty, she offers up a complicated portrait of
herself and her family, one that’s blessed with seminal artistry but plagued
with devastating psychiatric problems. In “Running from Crazy”, the filmmakers underscore
the importance of talking, looking, and trying to find answers to the
prevention of suicide and the treatment of concurrent mental health problems. Ultimately, they’ve spring-boarded from grief
into proactive behavior.

While telling these tragic stories clearly helps those
suffering, it also offers support to those with similar experiences. There’s a balm in knowing you belong to a
community. Yet, even more important, by finding
a public forum for these voices, these filmmakers have proffered a model of how
we can all make a difference. Something
good can come from something
bad. We just need to challenge ourselves
to act.

In my MFA program, I learned this about poems: if there’s
no surprise for the writer, there’s no surprise for the reader. Most contemporary poets believe that a poem
doesn’t truly take flight unless it offers an unexpected twist of heart,
thought, or image. But it’s hard to
manufacture surprise when you already know why you’re writing. How do you wind around the topic in a way
that invites your reader to participate without telling him or her how to
feel? How do you write about social
injustice?

My graduate school advisor, John Balaban, reached the draft
age during the Vietnam War. Although he conscientiously objected to the war and
our part in it, he flew over there to help rather than to fight. Working with International Volunteer Services,
he experienced the violence first-hand and ultimately chose to work in military
zones where he could rescue children damaged by bombs and stray bullets. When he returned to the States, he wrote
about what he saw and became well-known for the reality he brought back. His poems will break your heart. Their words don’t tell what to think. They don’t state the horror he felt, but emotions
infuse the images and rhythms. You
experience the horror.

Many of my creative writing students feel such ardor for
their poems, they forego ambiguity. They
want to insure that others recognize their meaning, their intent. It’s not uncommon for young poets to write: I feel sad.I feel
lonely. But not only do these phrases
lock down the experience, they reduce it to an uncomplicated one or two
feelings. They also put off the reader. One person’s experience cannot dictate
another’s.

I try to tell them that the details will draw in the listeners,
allowing readers to place themselves in the poem and imagine their own
reactions. It builds empathy. Some
may not want to join your journey. Maybe, the best they can manage is simple
acknowledgement and a cursory “I’m sorry,” but on some level, readers are
likely to recognize in gross terms what’s sad, funny, overwhelming, or
frightening.

I recently returned from AWP, the annual (and very large)
conference for writers and writing programs. There, I learned about a poem by
Joe Pan, which Eph;phany magazine published. It relates to the recent controversy over
drone use. Even The New York Times referenced it in an article. Here’s a link, so you can decide what you
think about “Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper”:

PlayMaker’s
new production of the classic, Raisin in
the Sun, is one of its very best.
The play written by Loraine Hansberry, a Black woman, debuted on
Broadway during segregation in the late 1950’s. Not wanting us to forget the stultifying
obstacles to African American success, the current director, Raelle
Myrick-Hodges chose (brilliantly) to refresh our understanding by interspersing
lines from an interview with Hansberry.
Inserted at the beginning, middle, and end of the play, the excerpts weave
thematically with the drama at hand. Still,
in a conversation at intermission, friends wondered: Was it
necessary? I mean don’t we all know about segregation and the hardships of African
American life in the 50’s? I don’t
know. Do we? I’d like to think Yes, but maybe with a Black president and a world in which minority
perspectives regularly appear on the front page, we’ve forgotten how it was
back then. Regardless, Hansberry’s
comments enrich our understanding of both the play and the denigration she
experienced. It should also encourage us. Despite ongoing tensions in our culture, we
have moved forward.

If Raisin in the Sun pertained only to
racism, it might have lost power with the changing times, but dramaturgs have praised
it for its ongoing resonance. At heart,
it portrays a family complicated by individual ambitions and loyalties—a chorus
of asynchronous accordions, expanding and shrinking desires. At the center is Lena. (Kathryn Hunter-Williams plays this matriarch
so perfectly that despite having seen this actress in at least 15 productions,
I thought of her only as Lena.) Lena takes
charge of the household where her two adult children, a daughter-in-law, and grandson
live with her. Firm in her faith, Lena tries
to ground her children and grandson in Christian values; however, she does not
deny their hardships or minimize them with talk of Heaven and the promise of
something better. She embodies a rare
duality: while seeming to accept without rancor what’s wrong with their
situation, she also works to change it. From
the beginning, we learn that Lena will receive a windfall that has the
potential to alter everyone’s life. Midway
through the action, she takes a tremendous risk. With the aim of finally achieving her dream
and others’, her decision cascades into apparent triumphs as well as disasters.

Her children,
Walter and Beneatha, seem to struggle more than she does. Unhappy with their present circumstances, they
both dream of storied futures, and they search the world around them for
visions of success. Walter, forcefully
played by Mikaal Sulaiman, can’t stand the daily insults of his job. Having seen the easy, catered lives of his
White employers, he develops a viral desire to have what they have. His sister, well played by Miriam A. Hyman, pursues
out-of-reach goals as well. She wants to
become a doctor, but she has no clear financial pathway to studying medicine. In this tightly bound family, only Lena and Walter’s
wife, Ruth, seem grounded. They have fantasies of a different life, but neither
nurses these until they seem attainable.
They are the most flexible characters: able to embrace change whether
good or bad.

Part of the
play’s brilliance lies in the dance of family and society. These interrelated characters must find a way
to balance their individual needs with those of the family while negotiating
the trap of the larger society. At
times, their competing desires scatter them, but the draw of family remains. Each character becomes a vital force in the action,
and even though we leave the play satisfied, we understand that not all
conflicts have been resolved. We know the
drama goes on.

Have a story you want to tell? An image you can't leave behind? Find ways to put them in words. I'll be teaching a 6-week "introduction to creative writing" class starting on Tuesday, February 19th. Each class will last one hour (7-8PM), and over the six weeks, we'll learn about and write creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Call or email for more information. You can use my contact page.